3 Ingredient Veggie Wraps

Sure, lunch wraps are cheap and accessible to buy from the supermarket, but if you’re caught short, or just prefer making them yourself to keep your food a bit simpler, this is one recipe you’re going to want to bank. The best thing, is all you need are 3 ingredients: spinach leaves, porridge oats and chickpea (besan) flour.

They’re soft, pliable and super easy to fill with your favorite lunchtime combo, or use them as a tortilla alternative to a DIY taco night for something different. Doesn’t hurt that you’re jamming a portion of veggies in there without anyone really noticing!

Ingredients (makes around 6)

2 cups instant oats

2 cups water

100g baby spinach

1/2 cup besan (chickpea) flour

Method

Soak oats in water for 10 minutes.

Add this oaty mess (all of it) to a nutribullet and blitz till smooth. Add spinach, pulse to combine, then besan flour, pulse again until smooth.

Add more water to loosen the mixture if required. You're looking for a crepe batter consistency.

Season with salt and pepper.

To cook, pour a thin layer of batter in a pre-heated non stick pan on medium heat. Do not flip till the edges start to curl, because these babies are super soft and will break apart if flipped too early. Cook on both sides till tender and cooked through.

Roast Chicken Pie: File Under Leftover Heroes

We’re all trying to do more with less, and we know what food waste has become a huge issue. I, for one, am not the kind of person who can eat the same meal day in and out, so it pays to have a few ideas when it comes to transforming leftovers into new dishes.

This pie was made from about half a roast chicken I baked, along with the veg. I shredded the meat, and collected the leftover jelly/gravy and veg. In a deep frying pan, I sweated off half a leek and some brown onion, then threw in a cup of roughly chopped mushrooms. After a few minutes, throw in the leftovers with a cup of stock. To round out the gravy, I added a heaped tablespoon of cream cheese and a tablespoon of dijon mustard. Bring everything to a simmer, and thicken with a teaspoon of potato starch, or my favourite trick, liquid kombu. Season to taste and set aside to cool and there you have it, the easiest pie filling.

…but here’s the thing. You can use this process with so many leftovers. Whether it’s a curry, Bolognese (even with the pasta), stew, leftover veg… you can make pretty much anything into a pie filling.

Joe taught me an olive oil pastry recipe that bears sharing (thanks babe!), and it’s brilliant because you need zero pastry skills to pull it off. It’s based on the principle of halves. So for however much plain flour you have, add half that in grams of water, and half that again, of olive oil. So if you have 200g flour, mix in 100g water and 50g oil. It’s also a vegan friendly, should you need a good vegan dough recipe on hand.

For a galette style pie to serve 4:

Ingredients

200g plain flour

100g water

50g olive oil

Sea salt

Method

Make a well in the centre of your flour. Combine the water and oil, then add to the centre of your flour well with a good few pinches of sea salt and bring the dough together. Knead lightly until the dough is combined, soft and pliable. Cover with a clean damp tea towel until ready to use.

When ready to use, heat the oven to 200c. Roll out the dough to about 1/2cm thick and gently drape it over a lined or non stick pie tin. Spoon in your cooled (at least room temp) pie filling and then bring the edges over. brush the pastry with melted butter (you can use Nuttelex if you want to keep it vegan), milk, or egg). Garnish the pie with fresh tarragon or thyme leaves, and sea salt. Cover the exposed filling with a small piece of silicon bakeware or baking paper, and cook for 40 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Allow to cool slightly so that the filling solidifies again and you can slice it neatly. You can eat it room temp, chilled a picnic, or simply reheat slices in the oven. Serve with cornichons and Dijon mustard.

Carrot and Miso Soup

I feel like...

• #BringBackTheClassics 2
• Apple crumble 1
• As Seen On TV 5
• Asian Food 3
• Aussie Classics 2
• Avocado 1
• Bacon 2
• Baking 8
• Beans 1
• Beef 2
• Beef Rendang 2
• Berries 1
• Butterbeans 1
• Cabbage 1
• Cake 6
• Carrot 2
• Cashew 1
• Caviar 1
• Chai 1
• Cheap 1
• Chez Dre 1
• Chicken 2
• Chickpea 1
• Chilli 2
• Chilli Oil 2
• Chinese 11
• Chocolate 3
• Coconut Crack Bars 1
• Comfort Food 4
• Coriander 1
• Curry 1
• Custard 1
• Dairy Free 1
• Dan Dan Noodles 1
• Dessert 3
• Dim Sum 1
• Dressing 1
• Drinks 1
• Dumplings 1
• Eas 1
• Easy Recipes 4
• Eat Your Weeds 1
• Egg 1
• Eggs 2
• Eggwhite 2
• Everyday Gourmet 1
• Floss 1
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• Ginger 1
• Gluten Free 2

A super easy, turbo-charged veggie soup to add to your repertoire. Simply switch out the chicken stock for vegetable stock and the butter for olive oil for a hearty, healthy, vegan staple.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons vegetable oil 

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

2 brown onions, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon sea salt 

1 teaspoon ground white pepper 

2 tablespoons white miso paste

10 carrots, peeled, topped, tailed and cut into chunks

Enough rich chicken or vegetable stock to cover solids (about 1.5L)

50g butter (substitute with olive oil to make this vegan)

2 tablespoons good quality EVO (I love Alto Olives)

Method

In a large saucepan, heat the 3 tablespoons of oil over low heat. Add the garlic, onion, salt, pepper, and, stir to combine and bring the heat up to medium. Sauté until the onions are translucent, but haven't taken on colour. Add the carrots and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add in the miso paste and then pour in enough stock to cover the vegetables. Bring to a simmer, then cover and cook until the vegetables collapse under the pressure of a spoon. Carefully remove the pot from the stove, add the butter and then and using a stick blender, blitz until smooth. Taste to season and serve with a drizzle of green herb oil, yoghurt and fried garlic crumbs.

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4 Ingredient No Bake Coconut Crack Bars

I feel like...

• #BringBackTheClassics 2
• Apple crumble 1
• As Seen On TV 5
• Asian Food 3
• Aussie Classics 2
• Avocado 1
• Bacon 2
• Baking 8
• Beans 1
• Beef 2
• Beef Rendang 2
• Berries 1
• Butterbeans 1
• Cabbage 1
• Cake 6
• Carrot 2
• Cashew 1
• Caviar 1
• Chai 1
• Cheap 1
• Chez Dre 1
• Chicken 2
• Chickpea 1
• Chilli 2
• Chilli Oil 2
• Chinese 11
• Chocolate 3
• Coconut Crack Bars 1
• Comfort Food 4
• Coriander 1
• Curry 1
• Custard 1
• Dairy Free 1
• Dan Dan Noodles 1
• Dessert 3
• Dim Sum 1
• Dressing 1
• Drinks 1
• Dumplings 1
• Eas 1
• Easy Recipes 4
• Eat Your Weeds 1
• Egg 1
• Eggs 2
• Eggwhite 2
• Everyday Gourmet 1
• Floss 1
• Garlic 1
• Ginger 1
• Gluten Free 2

As seen on Everyday Gourmet with Justine Schofield and Melissa Leong

A new year rolls around, as does the guilt for potentially overdoing it between Christmas and New Years, even though it's probably worth the argument that it's really what you eat between New Years and Christmas that's more important. 

But anyway, I digress. Once the sugar high from all your favourite end of year desserts comes to an end (personally, I'm a pavlova and trifle girl), here's a slightly more virtuous afternoon tea accompaniment that's vegan as well as gluten, refined sugar and dairy free...but be warned, they are called Crack Bars for a reason. There is zero baking involved and the base recipe is just 4 ingredients (I don't count salt), which you can add your favourite toppings or ingredients like pepitas and raw chocolate (pictured), cacao nibs, dried fruit, etc. Enjoy! 

Ingredients

1 cup dessicated coconut

1/4 cup maple syrup (honey will work, but isn't vegan if that matters)

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 pinch sea salt

Optional: a handful of pepitas, raw chocolate to drizzle. 

Method

Place the dessicated coconut into a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the melted coconut oil, maple syrup and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dessicated coconut, along with a good pinch of sea salt and combine well. At this stage, you can add any additional  ingredients you like, for example, a handful of chopped nuts, cacao nibs, pepitas, or dried fruit.

Line a shallow baking tray with baking paper and press the mixture into a level rectangle shape, alternatively you can use silicon ice cube moulds. Freeze the pressed mixture for 10-20 minutes until set, then slice into portions, or pop out of the mould, if using. If you want to drizzle a little melted chocolate (raw or otherwise, I don't discriminate), this is when you'd do that (and let's be honest, when is a little extra chocolate a bad idea?).

Store refrigerated. 

Vegan Chocolate Mousse

I feel like...

• #BringBackTheClassics 2
• Apple crumble 1
• As Seen On TV 5
• Asian Food 3
• Aussie Classics 2
• Avocado 1
• Bacon 2
• Baking 8
• Beans 1
• Beef 2
• Beef Rendang 2
• Berries 1
• Butterbeans 1
• Cabbage 1
• Cake 6
• Carrot 2
• Cashew 1
• Caviar 1
• Chai 1
• Cheap 1
• Chez Dre 1
• Chicken 2
• Chickpea 1
• Chilli 2
• Chilli Oil 2
• Chinese 11
• Chocolate 3
• Coconut Crack Bars 1
• Comfort Food 4
• Coriander 1
• Curry 1
• Custard 1
• Dairy Free 1
• Dan Dan Noodles 1
• Dessert 3
• Dim Sum 1
• Dressing 1
• Drinks 1
• Dumplings 1
• Eas 1
• Easy Recipes 4
• Eat Your Weeds 1
• Egg 1
• Eggs 2
• Eggwhite 2
• Everyday Gourmet 1
• Floss 1
• Garlic 1
• Ginger 1
• Gluten Free 2

Instagram is a wonderful thing for inspiration. It's also terrible for creating unrealistic expectations about everything from diet to body image, but that's a conversation for another time. A dear friend and chef Sharon Salloum from Sydney's Almond Bar (if you haven't been, you really should) recently posted a vegan chocolate mousse she had made. Being a chef and then running into health issues is never ideal, but it happens more than you think. Having to change what we eat out of necessity does create an opportunity to explore new things however, and while I could never EVER be vegan, that isn't to say that recipes that don't involve animal products can't be delicious. Case in point, this extremely rich and velvety chocolate mousse. Chances are you already have most of these ingredients at home anyway, so why no, eh?

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado

1/2 frozen banana

2 tbs cacao powder

1 tbs vanilla protein powder (I used Tropeaka Lean Protein, but this isn't a sponsored post)

1 tsp maple syrup or rice malt syrup (you could use raw honey for a vegetarian option if you don't want to go fully fledged vegan)

1 pinch sea salt

1 tbs coconut yoghurt or almond milk (optional, if the ingredients get a bit too thick to blend)

Cacao nibs and other fun things, for garnish

Method

Throw all your mousse ingredients into a high speed blender. Blitz until smooth (here's a recipe where 'rustic' chunks of avo probably aren't so appealing). The frozen banana means the mousse is pretty much ready to eat out of the blender, but I recommend decanting it into a bowl and chilling it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes or until ready to eat. Garnish with your favourite toppings and a little extra pinch of sea salt. 

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